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Joan Didion

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I just bought the White Album, which is an essay collection she published in 1979. Was drawn toward it by a recommendation from Bret Easton Ellis, who cites her as being a writer whose work encouraged him to write. I'd also read about her a long time ago in the Salon Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literature: the guide describes a story of hers in which the main character, having just aborted her baby, goes to get her hair done, unaffected and untrouble by the abortion. So, the same kind of casual nihilism for which we all seem to have such affection.

The first lines of the White Album: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be 'interesting' to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest, or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five."

pattycakes, i totally agree. it's like cheers: sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name. and they're always glad you came. i know i've made this analogy before, but it's true! i just wish people would start yelling "MOE" when i log in...

p.s. there's a joan didion list in this month's believer
p.p.s. i reserve the solitary right to refer to patioman as "pattypants," "pattycakes," or any other cutesy version of patrick i have previously invented or will invent in the near future.

I think that he based the comparison, primarily, on her journalism work, which is excellent. I haven't read any of her fiction, but the essays in the White Album are amazing, especially style-wise — beautifully written.

Yepper. [short reply, must pad: "Who put superglue in Dad's hat? Was it really a ghost that made Mom tear out of the house? Only sweet, gentle Matilda knows. Because she's the one playing all the jokes! She's a genius with idiot parents — and she's having a great time driving them crazy."]

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